


were there when i woke up this morning

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: (even if i could) make a deal with god [your blue-eyed boys related short-fic] [106]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bad Days, Disabled Character, Flashback, HYDRA tempts Steve Rogers to reconsider his previous position on Hell, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra did a number on Bucky, M/M, Memories, Mentally Ill Character, Pierce died too quick, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery isn't linear, Trauma, mental illness is disabling, sometimes even the kitten can't help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 03:09:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10234499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: He doesn't want to remember this.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of [**this series**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/132585), which is for short-fic associated with my fic [**your blue-eyed boys**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/107477), because I needed somewhere to stash it.
> 
> Reminder that canon for this fic still stops at _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_. **Content note** for detailed memory of period in HYDRA captivity and bad things happening.

He doesn't remember why they shot him. 

(The thought is a fucking joke: he doesn't even know if the memory is real. If this memory is real. If it happened like this. Is as sure as he is of anything that memories of this are based on real things, but this one, here, now? Fuck no, it could be pieces, it could be fantasy, it could be a hundred fucking things. Doesn't matter. Always like this.) 

Was always their last resort, a bullet through his side: they had snipers, they had other snipers, good enough or close enough to keep away from his spine but anywhere else he might be able to ignore it. Keep going. Walk it off. Sometimes it took two bullets, anyway. Might've already been one in his leg. Lower leg. Stay away from the thigh, femoral artery: bones healed, muscle healed, but if he bled out completely they might lose him and that wasn't allowed. 

Doesn't remember why. Remembers the moment his legs stopped holding him, remembers hands and knees, remembers right arm giving out and collapsing to the side - remembers that even if his left arm would hold him the rest of his body wouldn't, numb and far away except for the screaming from his abdomen, the pit of sucking nothing that comes after the body is too horrified for pain and just wants you to know that you're dying, that something's that horribly fucking wrong. 

Remembers rolling to the side, half-sitting against a wall - cheap concrete, snow on the ground, can't see enough in memory to know where it is. 

He doesn't remember why they shot him except that it's always for the same reason, was always for the same reason. Was always because he was out of control, their control, ignored orders, parameters, didn't comply and did something else instead, something they didn't want him to - different from if he didn't comply and did nothing. Didn't shoot him then. Did other things, things less risky. Only shot him when they had to bring him down. 

Doesn't remember why it was like that except he knows the face that comes ahead of the others, face behind the rifle still trained at him, and knows he wanted to kill it. 

Didn't hate. Wasn't enough of him to hate. Just wanted to kill, wanted to see it dead, wanted to see skull crumple under his fingers with blood welling until shards of bone came with it until there was nothing in the pulp of what used to be a skull that could be recognized as human and know he would never see it living again never see expressions on a face hear a voice nothing left, not enough left to even put on a tape in a computer in a cave he had to hear - 

He knows that. Knows he felt that. 

Remembers a ringing in his ears or his head as the face says, _Subject located._ And then _copy: Rumlow out._

(Or maybe he didn't say that. There were codes. Maybe that's the proof it's just a fucking pastiche sewing bits of knowing into a piece of shit fabric pretending to be a memory. Maybe. Maybe he remembers wrong. Maybe it doesn't fucking matter.) 

He remembers the faded edges of consciousness, the van. Left arm useless, dead. Heavy cuffs around his wrists, around his waist, above his knees, around his ankles. Nothing around his neck and thinks . . . he thinks he remembers he hurt whoever tried. 

Remembers voice he doesn't care enough about to name spitting a string of curses, and _what the fuck is this fucking thing?_ And the voice that belongs to the face he wants to kill saying something, but he didn't care, so he doesn't remember. 

And there's the table in the operating room, the breathing tube down his throat and the IV for paralytic and restraints wrists-arms-chest-hips-thighs-ankles anyway and pulling bright tugging burn of scalpel at his side into skin into muscle into everything underneath and fingers, tools, black sucking heat until, until needle drawing through skin closing gape and burning cold and only after that, only after that pain, something he can remember being pain. 

Remembers that. Didn't care then; cares now. Didn't think then, can't remember any thoughts just . . . knowing. He can only remember knowing. Didn't . . .feel anything. 

Doesn't work like that. He knows it doesn't work like that he felt . . .something but it didn't . . .matter. He doesn't remember. 

That's not what he remembers. 

(He doesn't want to remember any of this. And he picks at it like a scab trying to find everything he can. Picks at it, and digs, and digs again clutches at all of it, fuck, fuck _this_ , fuck him.) 

He remembers the cell. He remembers the one light. He remembers restraints on each wrist, left arm dead, right pinned to the wall, kneeling. 

(He doesn't want to remember this.) 

That the restraints released. Left arm no longer dead - not . . .right, not working right, but not dead. Right arm free. And . . .voice. Not from before. Not the other one, voice belonged to the face wanted to kill. This one. Voice always - 

_That_ voice. _His_ voice. The right - no, not the. . . right voice? _His_ voice, the voice that matters, the voice he doesn't . . . want to ignore. Voice he wants to speak. Voice he wants to hear. 

Voice he always wants to hear. 

Except. Not like this. Except. Except. Not this way. 

Not - 

_Report_ , that's what he remembers the voice says, that's what he remembers and he doesn't want it, didn't want it then doesn't want any of it now, just the words that aren't a question, that are a command, just - _report._

Doesn't, didn't want to answer, say the only answer, say - didn't want to. 

_He_ knows the answer of course _He_ knows the answer it's not a question it's, _He_ knows. And he knows. It's already done. Happened. 

He remembers this. Just . . . he fucking remembers. 

_No report_ , he remembers those words. Remembers he said. Admission. Admission there is no explanation. Admission there is no reason. Admission of non-compliance, disordered response, that he - 

Admission. 

He remembers what came after that, maybe. Or he makes it up, from other memories. Knows. (Unless everything's a lie. Unless he makes everything up.) Doesn't matter though. Remembers it didn't matter, remembers . . . already sick. Remembers already wanted - 

Nothing. Didn't want to die _couldn't_ want to, but he remembers he wanted. . . nothing. Oblivion. Anything but that. 

Anything but _report_ and _no report_ and impact of skin and bone against his face and everything, everything that meant. 

He doesn't want to remember this. 

 

Steve finds him in the bedroom, his back against the wall, and he wants _that_ , wants the same thing again: nothing, end, empty, not this, _nothing_ , and he still can't have it. Everything still won't go away, stop being what it is, stop being _this_ that he doesn't want to be or see or feel or remember later. He still can't have that. Steve finds him in the bedroom. 

Comes in and sits beside him on the floor. 

"You should go away." Bucky manages the words. He doesn't think they're in English. He wants them to be in English but he doesn't think they are. 

"Says who?" Steve asks, stupid stubborn son of a _bitch_ asks. And he _doesn't_ want this to be, now, doesn't want it, but he doesn't want Steve to go. But Steve should go. 

Steve should always go. Never does. 

"It's just the same _shit_ ," Bucky says. The words fit badly in his mouth. Between his teeth. Like they're something else that shouldn't be there. "Same bullshit same _shit_ , different day. It's not important. It'll go away. You don't need to be here." And it's true. He knows it's true. 

He doesn't. Steve doesn't. Doesn't need to be here, inside, on the floor, alone, just them, watching with that stupid fucking face that's half a puppy you just fucking kicked and half bloody murder he's sitting on and both of them ripping at him, Bucky _knows_ ripping at him, inside, because Steve only gets that face when something is. When something's tearing him up. When something hurts. Steve doesn't need to be here. Doesn't need to feel that. 

Should go away. 

"I want to be here," Steve says, because he's a fucking idiot and Bucky shakes his head. Stares at the floor in front of him. Carpet. Stupid carpet, patterns in blue and grey and fucking - 

"Shouldn't have to sit here," he makes himself say, gets through his teeth, "on the fucking floor, just because - " 

Steve says, "You don't want me to be here then I'll go," and the words run over top, cover and push down, and - "otherwise I don't need to be anywhere else, and I don't want to be, either." 

Stupid stubborn fucking son of a bitch. (And it echoes in his head, but the voice is wrong, voice is wrong, face might be right - but it isn't right - but the voice is wrong then, wrong there, right here and right now, and he fucking hates this, he _hates this_ he doesn't want this he - ) 

"You should go away," he says, again, and it's true but he doesn't mean it, doesn't want it, should want it doesn't want it he should - it's, he should - 

He should say _go away_ but he can't. Can only say _you should go away_. The other one gets stuck in his throat and chokes him. 

He can't look up. Left fist closed, by his side, because he's not supposed to break his - 

He's supposed to, not supposed to, he can't _think_ about it right so he closes his hand and puts it by his side, at the floor, and digs his right fingers into his leg instead. Steve should go away and he doesn't mean it and he doesn't want it and he's fucking crazy and this is _stupid_ , all of it's so fucking stupid, and he can't make it stop, either. Can't make any of it stop. 

And Steve says, "Why? Because you're supposed to sit here on your own and suffer or something? That's bullshit. You know it's bullshit." 

" _You_ know it's bullshit," is what Bucky hears himself say but he didn't . . .decide to say it? Didn't think it, it didn't, he didn't decide to. Did he?

"Yeah, okay," Steve says, " _I_ know it's bullshit, and I'm _right_ , and if it'll help I'll get a half-dozen sworn statements or something backing me up, because I can, because it _is_ bullshit. And you do know it. Maybe don't . . . " and Steve's hand moves like he's trying to catch the word, " _believe_ it right now but you know it." 

He understands the words, but they don't mean anything. Except that's wrong they mean . . . something they just won't . . . _fit_ in his head, and now his head hurts, and Bucky manages, "You shouldn't have to be here," except something tells him to just shut up, _shut up_ , stop it. Fucking stop it already. 

Stop it. _Shut up_. Just shut up. _Stop it._

"I _want_ to be here," Steve says, Steve repeats himself except this time he leans on the word, like he's trying to shove it into something. Maybe Bucky's head. "Bucky. It's not 'have', it's 'want'. I want to be here." 

And God, God, _Christ_ , someone should just fucking shoot him. He knows that, Bucky knows that, knows someone should just fucking shoot him already and maybe it should _be him_ , he should have the fucking guts to shoot himself, but he doesn't and he can't and he knows it. Can't do that. Can't do it. Could let Steve do it. Be still and close his eyes and do nothing and let, let it happen but he can't do it himself and he knows it and Steve won't. 

Won't. 

"Why the fuck," he says, "would you ever fucking want to be here, Steve," and he doesn't put a question on the end of it, doesn't need to ask. It isn't a question he _knows_ what Steve's going to say, knows it's wrong and stupid and he's so fucking tired and Steve's going to say it anyway, and mean it, and the worst part is he wants that, wants to hear it, and doesn't want Steve to go. 

And Steve says, "Because you're here," like that's not crazy, like that's not stupid, _stupid_ , a waste. "And you haven't told me you don't want me to be." 

Steve says that. Says that kind of thing. And if _he_ deserved anything, was worth anything, he'd say _I don't want you to be_ but that's not what he says, because he can't, because the words won't make shapes in his mouth, on his tongue, come out through his teeth and he says, "I don't want you to go," instead, because he's a fucking coward and he doesn't. Doesn't want Steve to go. 

"Well good," Steve says, "because I don't want to either. So we're both on the same page. Hey," he says, and now he's moving, like it was some kind of signal. Like something changed. Maybe something did change? Bucky lets the back of his head hit the wall and closes his eyes. Maybe something changed. He doesn't know. He can't tell. 

He just wants this to stop. All of it. 

"Hey," Steve says again, quieter. He's touching the side of Bucky's face, like he's asking Bucky to turn his head and look. When he does, Steve's leaning against the wall. He's leaning his shoulder against the wall, and his hand moves to thread fingers through Bucky's hair. "It's okay," he says. "C'mere. We're okay." 

It's the stupidest fucking thing he's said at least all day. None of this is okay. Stupid _fucking_ thing to even think, and Bucky should say that, but he thinks about Steve's hand instead. Where it curves around the back of his head, the faint, faint pressure pulling him over. Pulling him to rest his head against the front of Steve's shoulder, so he's breathing the air next to Steve's skin. 

None of it's okay. It can't be okay. Steve cradles the back of his head and says stupid shit anyway. 

He doesn't want it to stop. Doesn't want Steve to go away, pull his leg back out from under Bucky's knees, get up from the wall and not have one arm around Bucky's waist, threaded between the wall and Bucky's ribs and wrapped around to rest his hand on Bucky's other hip. Stop cradling Bucky's head with his other hand, resting his head against the side of Bucky's. Doesn't want Steve to stop that. 

"We're okay, Buck," Steve says, even though it can't be true. "Promise. We're okay."


End file.
